India can elude global slowdown with reforms, planning: Jaitley

Davos: Reforms along with responsible planning can help India confront the global economic slowdown, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said today in Davos.In his assessment of how India can confront an uncertain global economy with headwinds

Davos: Reforms along with responsible planning can help India confront the global economic slowdown, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said today in Davos.

In his assessment of how India can confront an uncertain global economy with headwinds from China and the US, Jaitley said that it can defy economic slowdown by continuing its reforms and "responsible" economic planning.

Jaitley, who is in Davos to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting, today exuded confidence of India tiding over global headwinds and the downward trend which is troubling global leaders.

"Indian economy in 2001, 2008 and 2015 has shown resilience to defy global slowdown and crisis. Today, we are better equipped to face that situation and show the resilience," Jaitley said in an interview.

Elaborating further, Jaitley also discussed the challenges that have led to this scenario. "There is worry over China, though Chinese themselves have said that it is no longer possible for China to have a double digit growth and that they consider 7 per cent growth as their new normal. But there is still a lot of global worry about China," he pointed out.

The Finance Minister said the oil, metals and commodity-producing nations are all facing serious challenges and there is a concern that the fourth quarter in the US may not be producing best results.

"Money is being withdrawn from several markets and getting invested elsewhere. Investors are being cautious and averse to risk in an environment of uncertainty. So, stock markets across the world have been adversely impacted. They are globally integrated and the currencies in most parts of the world have also been adversely impacted,” he said.

“In fact, the impact on currency has been the least in case of India, nonetheless there is an impact," he added.

In the last few days, the Indian rupee has been falling on foreign fund outflows. Touching a 29-month low against the US dollar, it closed at 68.02 on Thursday.